Book excerpt: String Skipping & Wide Interval Soloing: 212 Melodic Studies and Patterns for Guitar is a much-needed guitarist's guide to mastering wide interval soloing.This collection of repeating, continuous motion studies shows the guitarist how to develop melodic patterns that are characterized by large intervallic jumps in pitch, from one note to the next, in constant succession. This book presents four unique approaches to developing wide interval soloing, all of which utilize string skipping: 1) double pentatonic scales, which are three-note-per-string pentatonic scale patterns; 2) octave sliding, which uses sliding octave shapes in a variety of ways; 3) stacked fifths, which are wide interval shapes derived from pentatonic scales; and 4) wide interval arpeggios derived from the diatonic major scale.The sound that results from these techniques is exciting and unpredictable because it is such a departure from conventional melodic flow, which tends to be scalar, moving stepwise from one note in a scale to the next. By contrast, wide interval soloing is angular and skewed with big skips and sudden directional changes, creating a complex and fascinating sound. All of the studies in this book are designed as melodic etudes that can be applied directly to soloing in rock, jazz, fusion, and blues music.This book is ideal for serious guitarists in any style who want to break out of typical soloing patterns and create a more explosive, radical sound! CD included.